The term “War on Christianity” was coined a few years ago, when some retailers told employees to say “Happy Holidays” instead of Merry Christmas and Christmas trees were to be called “Holiday Trees” instead. There really is a war being waged against God’s church, but that war has been going on since the time of Jesus and it has nothing to do with a holiday greeting or the name given to a pine tree. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.” Sounds like spiritual warfare to me.
For the last seven decades, I have witnessed many advances the enemy has made here in our country. In my early years, we were a predominantly Christian nation, but with Constitutional guarantees for everyone to be able to express their opinions and beliefs without fear of persecution and to be able to worship or refrain from worship as we pleased. In spite of differences of belief or opinion, there was a mutual respect. The predominant philosophy was, “I may disagree with what you are saying, but I will fight to my death to defend your right to say it”. We now have become a predominately secular nation where people find almost everything offensive and seek to silence all opposition or establish “safe places” away from those “frightening” opposing views. The American Library Association announced that during 2015 there were 274 challenges to material in school libraries and for the first time ever the Bible was among the top ten challenged books. The only reason given was “religious viewpoint”. What a drastic and sad transformation our country has gone through in my lifetime.
In 1957, when I was 14, the number one song on both the Billboard Pop and Country charts was “The Three Bells”. It is a song about the birth, wedding and death of Jimmy Brown and the chapel bells and the prayers of a small congregation that marked each of those three occasions. I remember being with a group of teenagers from our church going to or from roller skating or some other activity. When that song came on the car radio there was silence until it was over. We were Christians, but we were also teenagers so silence like that was very rare. That song had deep meaning for us because it covered an entire lifetime in just three verses. Although we were just getting started in life, it was a reminder of our mortality and how quickly the seasons of life come and go. If that song were to be played just once on a pop station today there would probably be demonstrations and boycotts against that radio station, its owner and advertisers. Just another example of how far our nation has fallen.
Since the enemy continues to wage war against us, let us prayerfully put on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-17), trust completely in the power of God’s Spirit within us (Romans 8:11) and form a “Special Forces Unit” to penetrate enemy lines and rescue as many souls as we can from Satan’s prison camp of sin, shame and fear.